He introduced kids to all the weird and primal forces that shaped our world. He sucked us in with his lavish artwork to places that were both scary and beautiful, and showed us that we could be in control. He illustrated our dreams, or the dreams we wished we’d have.
Sendak describes to NPR’s Terry Gross one of his favorite interactions with a reader.
I’m not usually interested in Colbert’s style of satire, but that was a brilliant interview. Thanks for posting them.
RIP Mr. Sendak. You were big deal to my childhood.
^^^This ALL DAY! 
“The kids are jerks, you know.” at 1:12. OMG I almost fell out of my chair when he said that.
He said of the “children’s” book Stephen had just written – I Am a Pole (And So Can You!) – “The sad thing is, I like it!” Which Stephen made the cover blurb.
And, today, Stephen gives more props to Maurice.
One more Maurice moment: A few years ago I visited the Tampa Museum of Art (the old one) and there was a special exhibit of Sendak’s illustrations for the book of a play called Brundibar (means “Bumblebee”), which was produced during WWII, by semi-protected Jews in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, who knew very well that they would die for it, the play’s eponymous villain-bully being a thinly-veiled parody of Hitler. Sendak himself was a New-York-born Jew, but he lost a lot of relatives in the Holocaust.
Some people call me the space cowboy yeah
Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me Maurice
'Cos I speak of the pompatus of love . . .
I’ve actually never fully warmed to Where the Wild Things Are (although my daughter loves it), but Higglety Pigglety Pop!was one of my Top 5 books as a kid. And a bit longer than that, actually.
Excuse me, I think I have something in my eye.
No, no, no! You have to tame them with the magic trick of staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once!
Bumble’s Birthday Number 9 from Sesame Street. Creeped me out a bit as a kid, but now I respect the artistry of Maurice Sendak.
I was on the road today and was able to listen to the Fresh Air interviews. Great stuff. a really interesting man. As he said, he wasn’t afraid of death, didn’t believe in the afterlife, but still expected to see his brother on the other side.
And his partner too.
Oh, yes, Maurice was . . . Perhaps I should’ve phrased that differently . . . :o
I think that I have seen this too, supported by the fact that the monsters actually have been given names latterly: Tzipi, Moishe, Bernard…
“and it was still warm.”
Stephen Colbert gives us mo’ Maurice!
“still HOT!” None of that namby pamby make nice and gentle for the delicate children crap here! Hot dinner, damnit! That’s my curmudgeonly old man, right there.
I don’t believe in anything afterwards, but I hope he found what he wanted as he passed. He mentioned in an interview once that he thought often of everyone that he loved that had already died - that he loved and missed them, and it made him cry. I always get a lump in my throat when I think of that. Despite the loss, I’m a little happy that he doesn’t have to feel sad that he’s being left behind any more. 
Now, on to happier memories. My very favorite library is where my uncle worked, and where I studied as a child. It’s the main library in Richland County South Carolina. This mural and these standees were installed there right before I began going regularly. Memories of that space and of that massive and wonderful mural form a great deal of my current impression of how children’s spaces should be in the world.
I hope he didn’t choke on a chicken bone.
One was Maurice